Thursday, March 31, 2016

Easing yourself back into blogging after a sporadic semi-absence is like forcing a policeman into an old helmet using only a truncheon.

Truth be told, a golfer’s hole-in-one is nothing compared to prodding a constable home.

Forget the audacious skill involved in planting the ball just so, and consider instead the ease with which it circles and stills inside the hole thereafter.

Even if you manage to maneouvre your prone copper back into his headgear, there is no guarantee it will still be a perfect fit for his bonce.

Policemen’s skulls change shape subtly over time, and even the best constructed of helmets is not beyond expanding or contracting a little with the change of seasons.

Caps and wooly hats may be worn casually, tossed over a head like a limp penis atop a tin of beans in an overly sexualised Heinz Chicken Soup advert, but the same bohemian freedoms do not apply to the headgear of life’s enforcers.

A hint a of tightness here, a touch of looseness there, and when you sit your policeman upright, he will evidence one of two ridiculous stylistic errors: the “Perched Half Walnut” or the “Ear Bender of Dopeyo”.

(This applies equally if your policeman is a woman man, in spite of the easier-to-don apparel — though you would want to think carefully about your truncheoning strategy in the first instance.)

But, hey — the rozzery here is only included as an analogy.

If a gulf exists between the potting of a golf ball in a single shot and the truncheoning of a policeman into his (or her) headgear, then the canyon between rozzer rehatting and returning to regular blogging is even deeper and wider.

Am I up to the task?

I don’t know.

To paraphrase William Carlos Williams, so much depends on my ability to consume oily fish and refrain from knocking back the Cripplebutt Scrumpy.

Let’s see how it all looks next Monday.

As a principle for life, the only thing I’ve seen so far to better this sentiment is DO NOT BUGGER A LION, EVER.

Monday, March 28, 2016

When you envisage the ideal Easter Monday Bank Holiday here in the UK, you would be a fool not to consider the possibility of a little drizzle intruding upon your 24 hours of ‘chocolates & rest’ bliss.

We are hardened survivors of the “brief downpour”, stalwart tolerators of the “torrential blast from the heavens”, and valiant acceptors of the “nightmare storm so bleedin’ wet and windy it had the roof off me shed and ruined me £200 bloody gazebo”.

But, people — who asked for fucking snow?

Which one of you sent off the request a few weeks back as we were all basking in the melanoma-spawning heat?

Wost part is, not a single flake settled.

At least then we could have waved goodbye with good heart to any hope of sunbathing as we munched on our pre-melted melt-in-your-mouth chocolates till the heavens oozed with tangerine radiance and simply spent the day making Easter Bunny snowlapins.

Instead, all we got was a despoiling flurry offering zilcho other than ruined dreams.

I would not be surprised if we lose another 70s pop icon by nightfall.

Come on, God — I know the whole “Son of...” deal worked out really badly for you, but for fuck’s sake, leave off willya?

Thursday, March 24, 2016

It is a sad fact of the blogging hairdo scene right now that I am destined only to drop in and pluck random follicles rather than make with any kind of broad, flyaway sweep of full on styleeesteuapomp. My excuse is that I am busy, but while this is perfectly true, I have always been busy — if only by virtue of indulging in an ambient exfoliation of skin cells primed to last a lifetime.

Why, thank you, Mr Peno — that sums things up rather neatly.

I may stand on one leg as a guru contemplating balance in an inherently unsettled universe.

Maybe after that, I will hoover the living room and write a splash of fiction...

Monday, March 14, 2016

I hate it when gathering your thoughts resembles two octopussies battling to fold one another inside out but such is life this morning.

Today calls for incisive exactitude, and I am bound to fail horribly in everything I do.

If only it were possible to say, “please hang on until tomorrow, when I will possess the cerebrum of Professor Stephen Hawking — and a dragster,” but time waits for no man (especially one made polyoctopussialar).

So I am wobbling here as a writhing mass of undersea wibblies in the hope that I may inspire others in a similar position/pool.

Monday, you demand of us that we shake off the liquid detritus from the weekend’s gay abandon and leap into the working week maelstrom with diligence, enthusiasm, and fucking plenty brandy.

Thursday, March 10, 2016

There is no sense of adventure finer than wondering what might be around the next corner, and these places are unusually heavy on available corners.

As a bonus, the opportunities for discovering the mouldering bodies of previous owners are plentiful — and the same applies to soggy biscuits.

Here’s my latest find, somewhere in Liverpool near Central Station.

I lost all track of time for over an hour as I perused the dinky glassware, overpriced jackets and Carlsberg pub ashtrays.

Murdock the cat (seen pictured here atop a wooden Chinese dragon) (and pronounced meehrdoch, cos this was Liverpool) eventually gave up his place overlooking the door and made his way to the counter where he just lay.

People buying incense or mugs or old vinyl (I’m trying to give a flavour of the place here — it had everything) would fuss him as they paid for their stuff — and he responded by doing absolutely nothing.

I’ve never beheld such a trustworthy cat.

As it turned out, I left the shop with precisely nothing.

Deeper into the Scouser maelstrom, I encountered Sports Direct and stocked up on underpants against a lurid panorama devoid of cat, dog, budgie — even spider.